Some Embroidery Pics and not much else.

Soooo yeah. I had a week off and did bugger all really. SO TIRED. Hardly surprising as it seemed to comprise a lot of walking - walked to the allotment and back on the Saturday (in heatwave), walked to Oldbury on Sunday (in heatwave), walked to allotment and back again on Monday (in heatwave - a pattern is forming), walked back from allotment on Thursday (got bus there from town), and then again there and back on Sunday (in downpour - got drenched), and then we walked into Bearwood on Monday.

The walking to Oldbury and Bearwood was because our bus is rubbish on Sunday service and in both cases we'd just missed one.

We have a half-strimmed lawn because our 10m extension lead wasn't long enough, and now we have a 30m lead of course it's been raining. The heatwave made me dehydrated, the walk in the rain made me cold. I can't win.

Also today at work it's been frigging freezing because the heating is off (because it's June, duh) and someone left a window open over the course of the bank holiday weekend. Cheers for that!

Anyway, Friday to Tuesday have basically been spent watching Paul play Red Dead Redemption on the X-Box and yesterday I did some embroidery, so here are some pictures.

Er, basically just shading. I have actually started running out of colours all over the place but have reached the point where I no longer care, so I'm making do by using thread which is the closest match out of what's left. I don't think you can tell and hopefuly there'll be enough going on to disguise it. Also I am improvising like mad in the middle (the neck and front legs) where I managed to miscount early on. I suspect there may be slightly wonky bits of shading as a result, but thus far I can't really tell. ;)

So that's that.

Also yesterday I made blueberry muffins out of boredom. I was going to make patriotic Jubilee biscuits with Union Jacks and crowns and stuff on them, but couldn't be arsed. The muffins were sort of doomed, really: I ran out of plain flour so about a third of it was self-raising (they flattened like cupcakes instead of retaining their shape), and I'd literally just sifted the dry ingredients when I realised we'd run out of eggs, so I had to sent Paul out for some. Still, they taste okay.

Actually, we've done quite a bit of Proper Cooking this long weekend. On Friday we went to the fish market to fill a freezer drawer - £40 spent on mackerel, sea bream, some frozen queen scallops and king prawns, three chilli-flavoured lobster tails, two swordfish steaks and a bit of monkfish (the latter two are for special occasions). Saturday we did paprika beef in the slow cooker, which was very nice, with leftovers on Sunday with baked potatoes. On Monday I did a Goan fish curry (leftovers for lunch today), which was a bit too hot for Paul but very tasty indeed, and then yesterday Paul did a cottage pie. Tonight we're having lamb koftas with tzatziki to go with some mini pittas in the fridge, assuming I don't pass out from exhaustion first. :P

Last week my intention was to do a bit of work on my latest Pirates-fic, "Oranges to Florida" (songfic), as I'd done about 600 words at work on Friday. Of course, I didn't even look at it. Now watch it eat my sleep because I'm back at work.

I now have no more leave until September (excluding 17th August for Richie's wedding) unless I can sneak in a day or so in July. We're going away at the start of September and then I have a week off in October for my birthday, so I suspect the next two months are going to be long and arduous. :(